Note: The following passages are taken from The
Poem of the Man-God(Vol:…),The Notebooks: 1943(N43:…), The Notebooks: 1944(N44:…), The Notebooks: 1945-1950(N45-50:…),Lessons on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans(ROMANS:…), The Book of Azariah(AZ:…),
and The End Times and the Writings of
Maria Valtorta (ET:…).

(Joseph has been chosen from a number of other candidates, as
the future spouse of the fifteen-year-old Mary, because of a branch he had
brought which has flowered before the springtime season. The ceremony is now
over, and the couple are left alone…)

The betrothed are now facing each other. Mary, full of
blushes, is standing with Her head bowed. Joseph, who is also red in the face,
looks at Her and tries to find the first words to be said. He eventually finds
them, and a bright smile lights up his eyes. He says: « I welcome you,
Mary. I saw You when You were a little baby, only a few days old… I was a
friend of Your father's, and I have a nephew, the son of my brother Alphaeus,
who was a great friend of Your mother…

You do not know us, because You were only a little girl when
You came here. But everyone in Nazareth loves You, and they all think and speak
of Joachim's little Mary, Whose birth was a miracle of the Lord, and Who made
the barren old lady blossom wonderfully… I remember the evening You were born…
We all remember it because of the prodigy of a heavy rain that saved the
country. There was a violent storm, during which the thunderbolts did not damage
even a stem of heather. And it ended with such a large and beautiful rainbow,
the like of which has never been seen again.

And then… who does not remember Joachim's happiness?… He
was a happy old father, who died talking about his Mary, Who was so beautiful
and good, and Whose words were so full of wisdom and grace… And Your mother?
She filled Your house and the neighbourhood with her songs, and she sang like a
skylark in springtime when she was carrying You. And afterwards, when she held
You in her arms.

I made a cradle for You. A tiny little cradle, with roses
carved all over it, because Your mother wanted it like that. Perhaps it is still
in the house…

I am old, Mary. When You were born I was already working… I
would never have believed that I was going to have You as a spouse! Perhaps Your
parents would have died a happier death if they had known, because they were my
friends. I buried Your father, mourning over his death with a sincere heart,
because he was a good teacher to me. »

Mary raises Her face, little by little, taking heart, as She
hears Joseph speak to Her in this way. When he mentions the cradle, She smiles
gently. And when Joseph speaks of Her father, She holds out Her hand to him and
says: « Thank you, Joseph. » A very timid and gentle « thank
you. »

Joseph holds Her little jasmine hand in his short and strong
hands of a carpenter, and he caresses it with an affection that expresses more
and more confidence. Perhaps he is waiting for more words. But Mary is silent
once again. He then goes on: « As You know, Your house is still intact,
with the exception of the part that was demolished by order of the consul, to
build a road for the wagons of the Romans. The fields… have been rather
neglected… But the trees that saw You when You were a little girl are still
there, and if You agree, I will at once take care of them. »

« Thank you, Joseph. But you have your work… »

« I will work in Your orchard in the morning and in the
evening. The days are getting longer and longer. By springtime I want everything
to be in order for Your happiness… Look: this is a branch of the almond tree
near the house. I wanted to pick it, because I thought that if I should be the
chosen one, You would have been pleased to have a flower from Your garden. But I
was not expecting to be the chosen one, as I am a Nazirite. I have obeyed
because it is an order of the Priest, not because I wish to get married. Here is
the branch, Mary. With it I offer You my heart, and, like my heart, it has
bloomed up till now only for the Lord, and is now blooming for You, my
spouse »

Mary takes the branch. She is moved, and looks at Joseph with
a face that has become more and more confident and bright. She feels certain of
him. When he says to Her « I am a Nazirite », Her face becomes
bright, and She takes courage: « Also I am all of the Lord, Joseph. I do
not know whether the High Priest told you… »

« He only told me that You are good and pure, that You
wish to inform me of a vow, and that I must be good to you. Speak, Mary. Your
Joseph wants You to be happy in all Your desires. I do not love You with my
body. I love You with my soul, holy girl given to me by God! Please see in me a
father and a brother, in addition to a husband. Open Your heart to me as to a
father, and rely on me as on a brother… »

« Since My childhood I have consecrated Myself to the
Lord. I know this is not the custom in Israel. But I heard a voice requesting My
virginity as a sacrifice of love, for the coming of the Messiah. Israel has been
waiting for Him for such a long time!… It is not too much to forgo the joy of
being a mother for that! »

Joseph gazes at Her as if he wanted to read Her heart, then
he takes Her tiny hands - which are still holding the branch in blossom - and he
says: « I will join my sacrifice to Yours, and we shall love the Eternal
Father so much with our chastity, that He will send His Saviour to the
world earlier, and will allow us to see His Light shining in the world. Come,
Mary. Let us go before His House, and take an oath that we shall love each other
as the angels do. Then I will go to Nazareth to prepare everything for
You... »

(Vol. 1: 63-6)

(Departing from The
Poem for a moment, this commentary from Mary is included:)

"When I saw Joseph, all my natural anxiety fell like a
cloud dissolving into a rainbow. It was enough for me to look into his eyes, to
read in them that he was an honest, faithful, pure, just man. His age, more than
twice my own, had left him with the clear gaze of a child. For although Evil had
risen up around him as he lived in the world, it had been unable to penetrate
into his heart, filled with the love of God.

"With what trust I placed my hand in his, sensing that I
had found in him a loving father, a faithful spouse, and a chaste companion. He
would be like olive and fig trees shading a small house, defending it from winds
and the heat, and providing the refreshment and comfort of sweetness and
nourishment!

"My sweet spouse did not disappoint me! He really loved
me, believed in me, even going against appearances. He concealed his tears
from me so as not to disturb
Me. He had only smiles and help for me. He guided me as his
first attributed daughter, holding my hand to make me feel he was close by with
his love, avoiding obstacles for me, and anticipating my needs. He was patient,
silent, and chaste, chaste as only an angel can be.

"Oh, yes! Blessed be the Lord for this! I, whom the
Eternal had destined to be the Queen of his angels, had two angels as my
subjects. There was my Guardian Angel, whose invisible presence I felt stirring
at my side continually, with flashes of light and heavenly perfume. And there
was my angelic consort, whose flesh, not darkened by the desire of blood, lived
close to mine. We were like two lilies blossoming in the same flowerbed…

"My holy and blessed Joseph! My heart does not cease to
thank its Lord for having given him to me as a consort. As a holy father, He
provided for his Servant, and created this living defense for my virginity,
drawn out of the Temple. And the world's breath thus broke against Joseph, so
that the din and stench of human baseness did not penetrate where the eternal
Virgin continued to praise the Lord..."

(An edict has been issued for Mary and Jesus to register
their place of origin at Bethlehem, and Mary tells Joseph that She feels the
time is drawing near for Jesus’ birth. Joseph exclaims:)

« Do You think it is already the time?… Oh! What
shall we do? » Joseph is completely dismayed. He looks at Mary with two
pitiful eyes.

She realises this, and smiles. But She smiles more at
Herself than at him. A smile that seems to say: « He is a man, a just
man, but a man. And he sees as a man. He thinks as a man. Have pity on him, o
soul of Mine, and guide him so that he may see as a spirit. » But Her
kindness induces Her to reassure him. She is not untruthful, She simply diverts
his anxiety. « I do not know, Joseph. My time is very close. But could the
Lord not delay it, to relieve you from this worry? He can do everything. Don't
fear. »

« But the journey!… Think of the crowds. Will we find
good lodgings? Will we be in time to come back? And if… if You are to become a
Mother there, what will we do? We have no home there… We do not know anybody
any longer. »

« Don't be afraid. Everything will be all right. God
finds a shelter for the animal about to give birth. Do you think He will not
find one for His Messiah? We trust in Him, don't we? We always trust in Him. The
harder the trial, the more we trust. Like two children, we put our hands in His
fatherly ones. He is our guide. We rely entirely on Him. Consider how He has led
us with love so far. A father, even the best of fathers, could not do it with
greater care. We are His children and His servants. We fulfill His will. No harm
can befall us… It cannot: God is with us. »

Joseph looks at Her and listens to Her, happy. The wrinkles
on his forehead smooth away. He gets up, no longer tired or worried. He smiles.
« You are blessed, Sun of my soul! You are blessed, because You see
everything through the Grace, of which You are full! Don't let us waste time,
then. Because we must leave as soon as possible, and come back as soon as
possible, because everything is ready here for the… for the… »

« For our Son, Joseph. He must be such in the
eyes of the world, remember that. The Father has covered His coming with the
veil of mystery and we must not lift that veil. Jesus will do it, when the time
comes… »

The beauty of Mary's face, look, expression and voice, when
She says this « Jesus » cannot be described. It is already an
ecstasy. And the vision ends on it.

(Mary says:)

« I will not add much more, because My words are
already a lesson.

But I wish to draw the attention of wives to one point. Too
many marriages break up through the fault of women, who do not possess that
love, which is everything: kindness, pity and solace to their husbands. The
physical suffering that lies heavy on women does not lie heavily on men. But all
the moral worries do: necessities of work, decisions to be taken,
responsibilities before the established authorities and one's own family… oh!
how many things weigh on man! And how much comfort he also needs! And yet, a
woman's selfishness is such that she adds the weight of useless and sometimes
unfair complaints, to the burden of her tired, disheartened, worried husband.
And all this because she is selfish. She does not love. Love is not the
satisfaction of one's senses and utility. To love is to satisfy him whom we
love, beyond senses and utility, giving him the help he needs, so that he may
always be able to keep his wings open, in the skies of hope and peace…»

(Guided by an angel, some shepherds arrive at the
stable in Bethlehem, to pay homage to the Baby Jesus. There are twelve in all,
including the boy Levi who was the first to see the angel. They bring with them
some warm wool for the Baby, and a sheep…)

They milk the sheep, and with the hem of a piece of linen,
dipped into the warm creamy milk, Mary moistens the lips of the Baby, Who sucks
the sweet cream. They all smile, and even more so, when Jesus falls asleep in
the warmth of the wool, with the little bit of linen still between His lips…

(Then one of the shepherds says:)

« We are poor and ignorant, but we know that the
Prophets say that the Saviour will be the Prince of Peace. And he told us to
come and adore Him. That is why He gave us His peace. Glory be to God in the
Most High Heaven, and glory to His Christ here, and You are blessed, Woman, Who
gave birth to Him: You are holy, because You deserved to bear Him! Give us
orders as our Queen, because we will be happy to serve You. What can we do for
You? »

« You can love My Son, and always cherish the same
thoughts as you have now. »

(One by one, the shepherds introduce themselves, and then
Mary says:)

« I will remember your names. »

« We must go… But we will come back… And we will
bring others to worship Him. »

« How can we go back to the sheep-fold, leaving the
Child? »

« Glory be to God Who has shown Him to us! »

« Will You let us kiss His dress? » asks Levi,
with an angelic smile.

And Mary lifts Jesus slowly, and sitting on the hay, envelops
the tiny little feet in a linen, and offers them to be kissed. And the shepherds
bow down to the ground and kiss the tiny feet, veiled by the linen. Those with a
beard clean it first; almost everyone is crying, and when they have to go, they
walk out backwards, leaving their hearts there…

The vision ends thus, with Mary sitting on the straw with the
Child on Her lap, and Joseph, who, leaning with his elbow on the manger, looks
and adores.

(In the second year of His public life, Jesus has been
telling a large crowd about the shepherd who has left the 99 sheep, and searched
for and at last found his lost sheep...)

... Jesus has never turned round to look at the road behind
Him, and on which Mary of Magdala has arrived in the dim light of the evening.
She is most elegant, but at least she is dressed, and she is wearing a dark veil
which conceals her features and figure. But when Jesus continues His speech from
the words: « I found you, my beloved one », Mary hides her hands
under her veil and weeps, softly and continuously.

People cannot see her, because she is on this side of the
embankment which runs along the road. Only the moon - now high in the sky - and
Jesus’ spirit, can see her…

(Jesus comments to Maria Valtorta, about the Magdalene’s
conversion:)

« ... She came to Me to satisfy the passing fancy of an
idle woman who did not know how to while away the time. And although her ears
were almost deafened by the false homage of those who lulled her - singing to
her sensuality in order to make her their slave - she heard the clear severe
voice of Truth. Of the Truth that is not afraid of being despised or not
understood, and speaks, looking at God...

I made her hear the song of forgiveness... Forgiveness! It is
like dew on the parching thirst of sinners. Dew is not like hail... It descends
so lightly, that even the most delicate flower... drinks its refreshing
moisture. Dew settles near roots, on parched clods of earth, and penetrates the
soil… Forgiveness is like such dew...

I did not say one word to Mary Magdalene. I looked at her for
a moment, as if she were a statue, then I left her... And the last words:
"I do not insult. Do not insult. Pray for sinners. Nothing else"...
Woe to the apostle who says: "I am not going there because I know that I
shall not be able to convert anyone"... It is necessary to go, even if only
one in a thousand will be saved... And where the apostle is not able to
convert.., God may intervene. And then? Who is greater?... »

(Jesus is in Capernaum, where Mary Magdalene’s sister - a
very upset Martha - tells Him she is very worried because Mary Magdalene has
disappeared, and may have returned to her old haunts and ways. But Jesus
explains that Satan, after losing his prey, is trying to avenge himself, by
instilling fear and doubt into her, Martha. Then He says:)

« Not far from you, but in a place unknown to you, Mary
feels that her last doubt on the infinity of forgiveness received is being
dissipated. Her weeping changes into smiles, and her shadow into light... (She
is) where there is peace, where souls are regenerated... Your sister is with My
Mother... at Nazareth. »

« But how did she go there if she does not know Your
Mother, or Your house?… By herself… At night… Without means… Wearing
that dress… Such a long way… How? »

« How? As a tired swallow flies back to its native
nest, crossing seas and mountains, through storms, fog and hostile winds. As
swallows fly to hibernating places. Instinct guides them, warmth invites them,
the sun calls them. She went to the ray inviting her… to the universal Mother.
And we will see her come back happily at dawn… coming out forever from
darkness, with a Mother beside her, Mine, never to be an orphan again. Can you
believe that? »

« Yes, my Lord. »...

« And now go and rest. With My peace. »

(Vol. 2: 523)

(Some time later, the Mother says to the Magdalene:)

« ... Remember that you wept on My breast your first
happy tears. I am therefore your Mother, because a baby weeps its first tears on
its mother’s breast. I am your Mother, and will always be so. What may be
burdensome for you to tell the most kind sister, and the most loving nurse -
come and tell Me. I will always understand you. What you would not dare say to
My Jesus... come and tell Me. I will always be indulgent to you. And if you
should like also to inform Me of your triumphs - but I would prefer you told
Him, like sweet-smelling flowers, because He is your Saviour, not I - I will
rejoice with you… »

(Jesus, with His apostles and women disciples, has rescued a
little orphan boy Marjiam, from Doras, a cruel landholder. The boy is very
distressed, when asked to pray that Doras will repent…)

The child, in a fit of pain, shouts and cries, trembling,
deranged, striking with his closed fists the air, as he cannot strike the
slave-driver. The women are amazed and touched, and they endeavour to calm him.
But he is really in a fit of grief and does not hear anything. He shouts:
« I cannot, I cannot love and forgive him. I hate him, I hate him on
behalf of everybody, I hate him, I hate him!… » He is in a pitiful and
frightful state. It is the reaction of a creature who has suffered too much.

And Jesus says so: « That is Doras’ gravest felony:
to drive an innocent child to hate… »

He then takes the child in His arms and speaks to him:
« Listen, Marjiam. Do you want to go one day with your mummy, your daddy,
your little brother and the old father? »

« Yes… »

« Then you must not hate anybody. He who hates does not
go to Heaven. You cannot pray for Doras just now? Well, do not pray, but do not
hate. Do you know what you must do? You must never look back to think of the
past… »

« But my father who suffers is not past… »

« That is true. But look, Marjiam, try and pray like
this: "Our Father Who are in Heaven, please see to what is my wish…"
You will see that the Father will listen to you in the best possible way. Even
if you killed Doras, what would you do? You would lose the love of God, Heaven,
the company of your father and mother - and you would not relieve of his
troubles the old man whom you love. You are too little to be able to do it. But
God can. Tell Him. Say to Him: "You know how much I love my old father, and
how I love all those who are unhappy. Will You please see to this matter,
because You can do everything". What? Do you not want to preach the Gospel?
But the Gospel teaches love and forgiveness! How can you say to one: "Do
not hate. Forgive" if you cannot love and forgive? Leave things to good
God, and you will see how well He can arrange matters. Will you do that? »

(It is now early in the third year of Jesus’ public life,
and while travelling towards Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks His apostles who
people say that He is. One by one they give Him different answers, then Peter
responds:)

« You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God »
exclaims Peter, kneeling down with his arms stretched upwards, towards Jesus,
Who looks at him with His face bright with love, and Who bends to raise and
embrace him, saying:

« Simon, son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it
was not the flesh and blood that revealed this to you, but My Father in Heaven.
Since the first day you came with Me, you have been asking yourself that
question, and because you are simple and honest, you have been able to
understand and accept the reply that came to you from Heaven. You did not see
supernatural manifestations as your brother, John and James did. You did not
know My holiness as son, workman, citizen, as My brothers Judas and James did.
You did not receive any miracle, neither did you see Me work any. I showed no
sign of power to you as I did with Philip, Nathanael, Simon Cananean, Thomas and
Judas, who saw them. You were not subdued by My will, as Levi the publican was.
And yet you exclaimed: "He is the Christ!".

You believed since the first moment you saw Me, and your
faith was never shaken. That is why I called you Cephas. And that is why on you,
Peter, I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against
it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you bind on
earth, shall be bound also in Heaven. And whatever you loose on the earth shall
be loosed also in Heaven, o prudent faithful man, whose heart I have been able
to test. And now, from this moment you are the head, to whom obedience and
respect are due as to another Myself. And I proclaim him such before all of
you. »

If Jesus had crushed Peter under a hailstorm of reproaches,
Peter would not have wept so copiously. He is weeping and is shaken by sobs,
with his face on Jesus’ chest. His weeping can be compared only to the tears
he will shed in his grief for denying Jesus. He now weeps for many good humble
feelings... A little of the old Simon - the fisherman of Bethsaida who had
laughed incredulously and facetiously at his brother’s first announcement,
saying: « Of course, the Messiah would appear just to you!... » A
good little of the old Simon crumbles under those tears, and from his vanishing
frail human nature, Peter appears, more and more clearly, the Pontiff of the
Church of Christ.

When he raises his shy embarrassed face, he can make only one
gesture to say everything, to promise everything, to strengthen himself
completely for his new ministry: he throws his arms round Jesus’ neck,
compelling Him to bend and kiss him, mingling his somewhat bristly grizzled hair
and beard with the soft golden hair and beard of Jesus. And he looks at Jesus
with his large, loving, imploring and adoring eyes, still shining and red with
tears, holding the Master’s ascetic face, bent over his own, in his rough
large stumpy hands, as if it were a vase from which a vital liquid flowed... and
he drinks kindness, grace, confidence and strength from Jesus’ face, eyes and
smile...

(It is a very hot day, and Jesus, His apostles, and the
former shepherd Matthias - who was at Bethlehem when Jesus was born - are
resting in a hay shed. A little boy approaches, and is fascinated by the
sleeping Jesus. He stumbles over Matthias, wakes him up, and whispers many
questions. Matthias explains about Heaven, souls, that Jesus is God, and that
the angels came to visit the Baby Jesus on Christmas night. Jesus, now awake,
can resist no longer. He says:)

« Come here, child. »

Oh! the boy does not need to be told twice, and he throws
himself on Jesus, caressing and kissing Him, touching His forehead, His golden
eyebrows and eyelids, with his little finger, looking at himself in His blue
eyes, rubbing himself against His soft beard and silky hair, repeating at each
discovery: « How lovely You are! Lovely! Lovely! » Jesus and
Matthias smile.

Then, as the others wake up - because the boy is not so
careful now about making too much noise - the disciples and apostles smile,
seeing such an accurate examination by the little man in the bud, half-naked,
plump, who moves blissfully up and down Jesus' body, scanning it from head to
foot, and ends up by saying: « Turn around! » And he explains why:
« to see Your wings. » And when he is disappointed, he asks:
« Why have You not got wings? »

« I am not an angel, My child. »

« But You are God! How can You be God if You are not
full of wings? How will You be able to go up to Heaven? »

« I am God. Just because I am God I do not need wings.
I do what I want and I can do everything. »

« Well, then, make my eyes like Yours. They are
beautiful. »

« No. I gave you the ones you have, and I like them as
they are. Ask Me, instead, to make your soul just, so that you can love Me more
and more. »

« You gave me that as well, so You must like it as it
is » replies the little one with childish logic.

« Yes, I like it very much now, because it is innocent.
But while your eyes will always be the hue of ripe olives, your soul may change
from white to black, if you are bad. »

« No, not bad. I love You and I want to do what the
angels said when You were born: "Peace to God in Heaven and glory to men of
good will" » says the boy, which makes the adults laugh, and the
little fellow becomes mortified and quiet.

But Jesus comforts him while correcting him: « God is
always Peace, My child. He is the Peace. But the angels were giving Him glory
because the Saviour was born, and they were giving men the first rule to obtain
the peace, which was to come from My birth: "to have good will". The
one you want. »

« Yes, give it to me. Put it here where that man said
that I have my soul » and with his forefingers he beats his little chest
several times.

« Yes, My little friend. What is your name? »

« Michael! »

« The name of the powerful Archangel. Well, I give good
will to you, Michael. And may you be a confessor of the true God, saying to
persecutors what your angelic patron said: "Who is like God?". May you
be blessed now and always. » And He imposes His hands on him.

But the little one is not convinced. He says: « No,
kiss me here. On my soul. And Your blessing will go into it and will remain
closed, inside it » and he uncovers his chest to be kissed - without
anything being interposed between his body and Jesus' divine lips.

All those who are present smile, and are moved at the same
time. And quite rightly! The wonderful faith of the innocent child, who has gone
to Jesus - some may say by instinct, but urged by his soul - is really touching,
and Jesus points it out saying: « Oh! if everybody had the heart of a
child!... »

(Jesus has been invited to meet a group of Pharisees
and other dignitaries in Jerusalem - some of whom are His friends - who with
very mixed reasons, wish to make Him their king. He refuses their offer,
challenges their motives, and escapes their subsequent anger by fleeing down a
nearby valley…)

But someone has followed Him: John. John is half-naked, that
is, he is wearing the short tunic of fishermen, his hair is stiff and smooth as
is typical of people who have been in water, he is panting and nevertheless
pale. He approaches his Jesus slowly: he seems a shadow sliding on the rugged
cliff. He stops not very far away. He watches Jesus… He does not move. He
looks like a rock fixed to the rock. His dark tunic makes him even more
inconspicuous: only his face and bare legs and arms can just be seen in the
darkness of the night.

But when he hears - rather than sees - Jesus weep, he can
resist no longer, and he approaches Him and then calls Him:
« Master! »

Jesus hears the whisper and looks up: He gathers His clothes
ready to flee.

But John shouts: « What have they done to You, Master,
that You no longer recognise John? »

And Jesus recognises His Beloved. He stretches out His arms
and John throws himself into them, and they both weep over two different sorrows
- and one only love.

(John tells Jesus how, concerned for His safety, he had
swum across a lake and had been following Him for some time. Jesus explains the
circumstances of His encounter, and then says:).

« You will make no mention of it, except when men want
to present me as a common popular leader. That will happen one day. You will be
there and you shall say: "He was not a king of the Earth, because He did
not want to be one. Because His Kingdom was not of this world. He was the Son of
God, the Incarnate Word, and He could not accept what belongs to the earth. He
wanted to come into the world and take a body to redeem bodies and souls and the
world, but He was not subjected to the pomp of the world or to the incentives of
sin, and there was nothing sensual and worldly in Him. The Light was not
enveloped in Darkness, the Infinite did not accept finite things. But of
creatures limited by flesh and sin, He made creatures more like Himself, by
elevating to true royalty those who believed in Him. And He founded His Kingdom
in the hearts of men, before founding it in Heaven, where it will be complete
and eternal with all those who have been saved". You shall say that, John,
to all those who consider Me entirely a human being, to those who maintain that
I am entirely spiritual, and to those who deny that I was subject to temptation…
and to grief… You shall tell men that the Redeemer wept… and that they, men,
were redeemed also by My tears… »

« Yes, Lord. How much You are suffering, Jesus!… »

« How much I redeem! But you console Me in My
suffering. We shall depart from here at dawn. We shall find a boat. If I say to
you that we shall be able to proceed without oars, will you believe Me? »

«I would believe You even if You said that we can go without
a boat… »

(Jesus, all alone near the Sea of Galilee, is visited
by His Mother and the apostle John. While John leaves them alone for a while,
Mary, the loving Mother, tends to her Son’s needs, including clothes. She
says:)

« When men are away from their women, they must have
everything new, so that they do not need to have anything mended, in order to be
properly dressed. But I have not wasted anything. This mantle of Mine is Your
old one, which I shortened and re-dyed. It is still all right for Me. But not
for You. You are Jesus… »

It is impossible to say what there is in this sentence.
« You are Jesus ». A simple sentence. But all the love of the Mother
- of the disciple, of the ancient Hebrew women for the Promised Messiah, of the
Hebrew women of the blessed time in which Jesus lived - is in those few words…

I have never seen anything greater, more absolute, than these
adorations of Mary for the Word of God. He is Her Son, and She always remembers
that He is Her God… She loves more than a creature. Oh! She really is the
daughter of God, free from sin! That is why She can love like this!…

(It is late at night, shortly before Jesus’ Passion and
Death. Alone and praying in a friendly household, Jesus is visited by Simon
Peter, who has something on his mind. He says to Jesus:)

« You send me here and there. And people ask me
questions and I must reply to them. I think that what I ask You, other people
may ask me. Because the thoughts of men are alike. Yesterday You said that
innocent and holy people will always suffer, nay, they will be the ones who will
suffer on behalf of everybody. I find it difficult to understand that, even if
You say that they will wish that themselves. And I think that as it is difficult
for me, it may also be difficult for other people. If they ask me, what shall I
tell them? In this first journey a mother said to me: "It was not fair that
my little girl should die with so much pain, because she was good and
innocent". And as I did not know what to say, I repeated Job's words:
"The Lord has given. The Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the
Lord". But I was not convinced myself. And I did not convince her. The next
time I would like to know what to say… »

« Listen. It seems an injustice, but it is a great
justice that the best should suffer on behalf of everybody. Now tell Me, Simon.
What is the Earth?… The Earth is an altar, Simon. A huge altar. It was to be
the altar of everlasting praise to its Creator. But the Earth is full of sin.
Therefore it must be the altar of endless expiation and sacrifice, on which the
victims are consumed. The Earth, like the other worlds with which Creation is
strewn, ought to sing psalms to God Who created it…

Consider this, Simon. What benefit does God get from
Creation? What profit? None. Creation does not make God greater, it does not
sanctify Him, it does not make Him rich. He is infinite. He would have been so,
even if Creation had never existed. But God-Love wanted to have love. And He
created, to have love. God can get only love from Creation, and that love -
which is intelligent and free only in angels and in men - is the glory of God,
the joy of angels, the religion for men. The day that the great altar of the
Earth should cease to give praises and entreaties of love, the Earth would cease
existing. Because once love is extinguished, expiation would cease also, and the
wrath of God would destroy the Earth that had become an earthly hell. So the
Earth must love, in order to exist.

Also the Earth must be the Temple that loves and prays with
the intelligence of men. But which victims are always offered in the Temple? The
pure, spotless, faultless victims. Those are the only victims agreeable to the
Lord. They are the early fruits. Because the best things are to be given to the
Father of the family, and the first fruits of everything, the choice things, are
to be given to God, the Father of the human family.

I said that the Earth has a double duty of sacrifice: that of
praise, and that of expiation. Because Mankind that has spread over the Earth
sinned in the First men, and continuously sins by adding - to the sin of
estrangement from God - the other countless sins of his consent. These are to
the voices of the world, of the flesh, and of Satan. A guilty, very guilty
Mankind that, although he has likeness to God - having his own intelligence and
divine help - is more and more sinful. Stars obey, plants obey, elements obey,
animals obey - and they praise the Lord as best they can. Men do not obey the
Lord, or praise the Lord, enough. Hence the necessity of victim-souls, that may
love and expiate on behalf of everybody. They are the children who, innocent and
unaware, pay the bitter punishment of sorrow, for those who can do nothing but
sin. They are the saints, who willingly sacrifice themselves for everybody… »

« But children… »

« You mean those who cannot yet offer themselves… And
do you know when God speaks in them? The language of God is spiritual. A soul
understands it, and a soul has no age. Nay, I tell you that a child's soul - as
it is without malice, with regard to its capacity of understanding God - is more
adult than the soul of an old sinner. I tell you, Simon, that you will live
so long as to see many children teach adults, and even yourself, the wisdom of
heroic love. But in those little ones who die for natural reasons, God acts
directly, for motives of so high a love that I cannot explain to you… We
have let the moon set, Simon… It will soon be dawn and you have had no sleep… »

« It does not matter, Master. I have lost a few hours
of sleep and I have gained so much wisdom. And I have been with You. But if You
allow me, I will now go. Not to sleep. But to think of Your words again. »

He is already at the door and is about to go out, when he
stops, pensively, and says: « One more question, Master. Is it right for
me to say to someone who suffers, that sorrow is not a punishment, but a…
grace, something like… like our vocation, beautiful even if toilsome,
beautiful even if it may seem an unpleasant and sad thing to people who do not
know? »

« Yes, you can say that, Simon. It is the truth. Sorrow
is not a punishment, when one knows how to accept it and use it rightly. Sorrow
is like a priesthood, Simon. A priesthood open to everybody. A priesthood that
confers great power on the heart of God. It is a great merit. Sorrow, that was
born at the same time as sin, can appease the Justice. Because God can also use
- for good purposes - what Hatred created to give sorrow. I did not choose any
other means to cancel the Sin. Because there is no means greater than this
one. »

(Jesus has been betrayed by Judas, scourged, and sentenced to
death on the Cross. Judas, overcome by panic, runs through the streets of
Jerusalem, and finds himself in the house of the Last Supper. He goes into the
Supper Room, and is suddenly face-to-face with Mary…)

She looks as pale as if She had lost all Her blood. Grief has
made Her eyes resemble, even more, those of Her Son… Uttering a frightened
« Oh! » he leans against the wall.

« Judas! » says Mary, « Judas, why have you
come? » The same words as Jesus'. And they are spoken with sad love. Judas
remembers them and shouts.

« Judas » repeats Mary « what have you
done? To so much love have you replied by betraying? » Mary's voice is a
trembling caress.

Judas is about to run away. Mary calls him with a voice that
should have converted a demon. « Judas! Judas! Stop! Stop! Listen! I am
telling you in His name: repent, Judas. He forgives… » Judas has run
away. Mary's voice, Her appearance, have been the coup de grace, or rather of
disgrace, because he resists Her…

(Jesus comments to Maria Valtorta:)

« My Mother… said to him: "Repent, Judas. He
forgives… " Oh! I would have forgiven him! If he had only thrown himself
at the feet of My Mother saying: "Mercy", She, the Merciful Mother,
would have picked him up as a wounded man, and on his satanic wounds - through
which the Enemy had imbued him with the Crime - She would have shed Her tears
that save. And She would have brought him to Me, to the foot of the Cross… She
is the Mother of virgins and saints, but She is also the Mother of sinners…

Oh! Maternity of Mary Martyr!… You alone were able to speak
those words to Judas. And You alone, in that hour, when you felt the cross break Your heart, were able to love and forgive…

Do not be like Judas, who closes his heart to this Mistress
of Grace, and despairs saying: "He cannot forgive me". He questions
the words of the Mother of Truth, and consequently My words, which had always
repeated that I had come to save and not to lose, to forgive those who came to
Me repentant…

The new life for Mankind, and for individual men, begins from
Mary. Her virtues and Her way of living are your school. And in Her grief - in
which all aspects appeared, also that of forgiveness for the killer of Her Son -
is your salvation"… »

(Using ladders, and with great difficulty, Joseph of
Arimathea, Nicodemus and John remove the nails and lower Jesus down from the
Cross…)

He is now in His Mother's lap. And He looks like a big tired
child who is asleep, all cuddled up in his mother's lap. Mary is holding Him
with Her right arm round the shoulders of Her Son, and Her left one stretched
over the abdomen, supporting Him by the hips…

She wipes the tears that drop on the cold body covered with
blood, and She thinks of cleaning it with Her tears and Her veil, which is still
round Jesus' loins. She pulls one end of it towards Herself and She begins to
clean and dry the holy limbs with it. And She continually caresses His face,
then His hands and His bruised knees, and then reverts to drying His Body, on
which endless tears are dropping.

And while doing so Her hand touches the gash on His chest.
Her little hand, covered with the linen veil, enters almost completely into the
large hole of the wound. Mary bends to see in the dim light which has formed,
and She sees. She sees the chest torn open and the heart of Her Son. She utters
a cry then. A sword seems to be splitting Her heart. She shouts, and then throws
Herself on Her Son. And She seems dead, too.

They succour and console Her. They want to take Her divine
Dead Son away from Her, and as She shouts: « Where, where shall I put You?
In which place, safe and worthy of You? » Joseph… says: « Take
courage, o Woman! My sepulchre is new and worthy of a great man. I give it to
Him… But I beg You, as it is getting dark, let us proceed… It is Preparation
Day. Be good, o holy Woman! »

John and the women beg Her likewise, and Mary allows Her Son
to be removed from Her lap. She stands up, distressed, while they envelop Him in
a sheet, begging: « Oh! do it gently! »

Nicodemus and John at the shoulders, Joseph at the feet, they
lift the Corpse, enveloped not only in the sheet, but resting also on the
mantles which act as a stretcher. And they set out down the road.

Mary, supported by Her sister-in-law and by the Magdalene,
goes down towards the sepulchre, followed by Martha, Mary of Zebedee and
Susanna, who have picked up the nails, the tongs, the crown, the sponge and the
cane.

On Calvary remain the three crosses. The central one is bare,
and the other two have their living trophies, who are dying…

(In very graphic terms, Jesus describes to Maria
Valtorta the suffering of all the physical parts of His Body - and how each form
of torture was a reparation for particular sins of man. He says:)

"You have seen the wreath of bruises around my kidneys. Your scientists, to give proof to your incredulity with regard to that evidence of My suffering, which is the Shroud, explain how the blood, the cadaveric perspiration, and the urea of an overfatigued body, when mixed with the spices, could have produced that natural drawing of My dead tortured Body.

"It would be better to believe without the need of so many proofs to believe. It would be better to say: "That is the work of God" and bless God, Who has granted you an indisputable proof of My Crucifixion and of the tortures preceding it!

"But as now you are no longer able to believe with the simplicity of children, but you need scientific proofs – how poor is your faith, that without the support and the spur of science cannot stand up straight and walk – you must know that the cruel bruises of My kidneys have been the most powerful chemical agent in the miracle of the Shroud. My kidneys, almost crushed by the scourges, were no longer able to work. Like those of people burnt by fire, they were unable to filter, and urea accumulated and spread in My blood, in My body, bringing about the sufferings of uremic intoxication and the reagent that oozed out of My corpse and fixed the impression on the cloth. But any doctor among you, or anyone suffering from uremia, will realize what sufferings the uremic toxins caused Me, as they were so plentiful as to produce an indelible impression."

(Jesus comments to Maria Valtorta on His Mother’s
torment, love, and prayer…)

« … She did not curse, She did not hate. She
prayed, She loved, She obeyed. Always a Mother, to the extent of thinking,
among Her tortures, that Her Jesus needed Her virginal veil on His innocent
body, to defend His decency…

Later you heard Her say: "Father, I love You, and You
have loved us!" She remembers, She proclaims that God has loved Her… She
loves Him. She does not grieve over Her sorrow, but over what Her Son
suffered. She does not shout because Her heart is broken, but because
Mine is pierced. She asks the Father the reason for that, not for Her sorrow.
She asks the reason of the Father in the name of their Son… »

"In the eyes of the world you are as white as Alpine
snow. But in my eyes you are still gray, because of the dust covering you. How
is the dust formed? Out of particles so tiny that they are invisible to the
naked eye. But a great many, placed together, make a gray film, tarnishing and
dirtying things. It is not necessary to be crushed by boulders, to die of
suffocation or to appear ugly. A heap of dust can also kill by asphyxia, and
always makes one ugly.

"The boulders are mortal sins. The dust is venial sins.
An imperfection is also dust - finer, but still dust. And it must be removed,
for if it accumulates - no matter how imperceptible and insignificant each
molecule is - it eventually asphyxiates the spirit and makes it dirty. The world
does not see it. I do. There are things which are apparently white, but which
are not. Not by their own will, but because other wills have stained and
corrupted them. As long as there is life, there is danger. It is life itself
which is the danger.

"Look at the snow. How white it is! It has been formed
high up, in my sky. Look at the lily. How pearly it is! I created its silk. But
if you look at snow and the lily under a microscope, you see how many germs of
impurity have introduced themselves into the whitest snowflake, during its fall
through space before landing on earth. And you see how many microscopic bits of
dust tarnish the angelical silk of the just-opened lily. For both the snow and
the lily, as inanimate things, there is no blame if this occurs.

"But for the rational soul there is. It can keep
watch and make provisions. How? By using love. Love is the microscope of
the soul. The more one loves Me and sees things through Me, the more it sees the
little stains on its conscience. These do not drive Me away, because I know how
you are made. They do not drive Me away, however, if the soul undergoes them
as inevitable, but does not provoke them and, on the contrary, immediately
seeks to cleanse itself. Always remember this.

"I remain. Indeed, you should seek to receive Me more
often, sacramentally as well. There is nothing but my Blood to wash away the
grayness of your soul, and make it worthy of the King, of Me…"

"The life of parents is a sacrifice, as is that of
priests and teachers convinced of their mission. All three groups are 'molders'
of what does not die: the spirit, or the psyche, if you prefer. And since the
spirit stands in relation to the flesh in a proportion of 1000 to 1, consider
the degree of perfection from which parents, teachers, and priests ought to draw
to be truly as they should. I say 'perfection'. 'Formation' is not enough. They
must form the others, but in order to form them not as the deformed, they must
model them after a perfect model.

And how can they claim to, if they are imperfect themselves?
And how can they become perfect themselves, if they do not model themselves
after the Perfect One, who is God? And what can make man capable of modeling
himself after God? Love. Always love. You are crude, formless iron. Love
is the furnace which purifies, melts and liquefies you, so as to flow through
supernatural veins into the form of God. Then you will be the 'molders' of
others: when you have molded yourselves after the perfection of God…"

"Never do your loved ones love you so much as after
earthly death, for their love is now infused with the Light of God, and in this
Light they understand how you love them, and how they shouldhave
loved you.

"They can no longer say words to you that ask for
forgiveness and provide love. But they say them to Me for you, and I take to you
these words of your dead, who are now able to see and love you as they should. I
take them to you together with their request for love and their blessing. A
blessing already valid from Purgatory on, for it is already infused with the
inflamed Charity which burns and purifies them. Perfectly valid, later,
from the moment when, freed, they come to meet you on the threshold of Life or
rejoin you therein, if you have already preceded them into the Kingdom of Love…"

"The closer the hour of reunion with God comes, the more
faith must be increased. For in the hour of death, Satan has never tired of
disturbing you with his deceits. Crafty, fierce, and flattering as he is, he has
sought to bend you with smiles, songs, roars, hisses, caresses, and scratches.
And he augments his operations to tear you away from Heaven. This is precisely
the time to embrace the Cross, so that the waves of the final Satanic storm will
not submerge you. Afterwards, eternal Peace comes.

"Cheer up, Maria. May the Cross be your strength now,
and at the hour of death.

"Let the cross of death - man's last cross - have two
arms. Let one be my Cross, and the other, the name of Mary. Then death occurs in
the peace of those liberated, as well, from the nearness of Satan. For he, the
Accursed One, does not endure the Cross, nor the Name of my Mother.

"Let this be made known to many. For you all have to
die, and you all need this teaching to emerge victoriously from the final snare
of the one who hates you immensely."

"The guardian angel of every creature worships therein
the indwelling God, if the creature is in the Lord's grace.

"You are living temples in which God dwells. Sin drives
away the Divine Guest, but otherwise every human spirit is the tabernacle,
enclosed in the temple of your body. It is consecrated by the Sacraments, in
which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are present, through the
indissoluble union of the Three Persons.

"When the creature is no longer in a state of grace, the
angel, weeping, venerates the work of his Creator. He can no longer venerate
anything else. But since the creature is the work of his God, he venerates the
creature just as you venerate a place once inhabited by Me, and then profaned by
my enemies, but always worthy of veneration. Not because it contains Me, but
because it contained Me. To understand, remember the Holy Cenacle.

"This is why every angel remains with supreme respect
alongside the one he is protecting. Happy is the angel alongside a creature who
can say, 'I worship You, my Lord, enclosed in this creature of yours,' and does
not need to fly to Heaven to encounter God's gaze!

"Let the clothing of your angel tell you the nature of
his mission to you. To infuse hope into you. Among the three virtues, it is the
one which should be infused into you most, for your cross reduces it to
crumbles, and destroys it by the hour. And it must thus descend from Heaven to
nourish you by the hour. Faith is secure, as strong as the wings of your
guardian. Love is as alive as the mantle adorning his shoulders. But the robe is
ample and shining, and says to you, 'Hope!' "

(Azariah describes the hidden work of souls, communicating
with other souls.)

"Souls seek God. It often seems to you that they do not.
You do not know the spiritual sufferings of a soul enclosed in a body and
subject to thoughts which are hostile to God. Those who possess these
disheartened souls do not, themselves, notice the tears of their blinded,
chained soul going about - in distress - in search of the Light... (Sometimes a
soul receives) mysterious words to bear off with itself in secret. Words which
seem to have been spoken and received in vain, and which sometimes reappear on
one’s deathbed and win the final battle, delivering a spirit to God.

"Many words are not needed. Sometimes none. To see one
another - a glance. Your eyes gaze in a way that is no longer earthly. You look,
but it is not you - Christ looks through you. You see, but you do not see the
man in front of you. You see his soul with your soul... While your lips are
silent, your soul loves. And by loving, it caresses and comforts the embittered,
sick, irate soul speaking to you. You also sometimes speak and say commonplace
words to commonplace listeners, from whom you want to keep your secret hidden.
But... now and then a spiritual gem falls from your lips, like a spark escaping
from the Fire possessing you. And the one speaking with you receives it and
meditates upon it, and his soul awakens, reflects, and sometimes decides…"

(On 27th August 1943, Jesus spells out the critical
periods of the Apocalyptic times. His message begins as follows:)

"Even in the Apocalypse, the periods seem to be
confused, but that is not the case. It would be better to say they are reflected
in the future times, under increasingly grandiose aspects.

"We are now in the period I call ‘of the forerunners
of the Antichrist’. Then the period of the Antichrist, who is the
forerunner of Satan, will come. He will be helped by the manifestations of
Satan: the two beasts named in the Apocalypse. It will be a time worse than the
current one. Evil is constantly increasing. Once the Antichrist is defeated, the
period of peace will come to give men - struck by amazement at the seven plagues
and the fall of Babylon - time to gather under my sign. (Then) the
anti-Christian epoch will rise to the maximum power in its third manifestation -
that is, when the last coming of Satan takes place..."

(N43:
273)

(On 9th April 1944, Jesus says:)

"Maria, I told you in late May 1943: ‘Regarding the
future, what do you want to know, poor soul? Thank My mercy that, for now,
it hides from you, to a great extent, the truth about the future’. Poor, poor
soul!...

"... It is the hour of the power of darkness. And
people have wanted it of their own free wills. The Kingdom of Evil is already
set up. Whatever I did would be nullified by people’s free wills. Whatever Good
would be destroyed by Evil.

"Powerless, I witness this rush of mankind into
spiritual death. There is no gift of Mine, no kindness of Mine, no rebuke of
Mine, no punishment of Mine, to use to stop mankind, redeemed by Me, to
voluntarily ruining itself in Satan. Like an enraged bull, mankind runs over
everything - reason, morals, faith - and goes and crashes against what is
killing it. People’s desecrating hands are being raised for a new crime which
does not deserve forgiveness. And the Father does not want to forgive. He
lets you perish as you wanted.

"The only thing I can do, and am doing, is to hold back
My Father’s wrath - and I am doing it out of compassion for the saints who, rare
like flowers in the desert, still pray, pray and do not make
protestations of custom and hypocrisy. Weary of the crimes of a brood for which
My blood was shed uselessly, the Father wants, really wants, to wield His
Justice on you. And justice - since you are guilty - would mean tremendous
punishment which My Mercy does not want to be meted out, in addition to those
which you already mete out to yourselves.

(On the same day as Jesus’ message, the Holy Spirit
says:)

"I am the comforter. I comfort those crushed by dismay
and tortured by the present. I am the One Who heals and sweetens the bitterness
of the Words that speak the truth, which nowadays is really bitter...

"Even if everything seems lost, trust. Even if the abyss
of Evil spews out its demons to torment the Earth, and to fertilize it to bear
the Antichrist, and even if the abyss of the Heavens seems to shut itself by
decree of the Father, from Whom We proceed - We, the Word and the Spirit. Even
so, We are still working and loving, to save you people and defend you.
I-Charity and the Word-Charity, I-Sanctification and the Word-Redemption; We do
not cease pouring forth - the One: the merits of His Blood, the Other: the
charisms of His Power - for the good of you people.

"After the darkness the light. Always. In the creation
of the world. In the birth of the day after the night. In the succession of
epochs and eras. Corruption generates elements of life from death…

"Like the grain cast in the furrows, and covered with
manure in the gloomy winter months. That grain seems degraded, buried under
layers of dirt and the stench of dung. It seems lost to the sun, and the sun to
it. But precisely because it is there below, mortified, pressed down, and
overwhelmed by the dust and the wheat, it can take root. It is no longer a
tenuous grain which the passer-by can crush with his foot, the wind carry
elsewhere, or the bird swallow. It may become a stable, cheerful, useful,
prosperous plant, multiplied in value and power, beneficial, and victorious
under the intense sun of the loveliest months.

"Light seems to grow dark, and death comes. Corruption
spreads, and overflows with its burdensome waves. Fear not. It’s what’s needed
to rouse the drowsy, and make them desirous of voices from on high. Struggle is
useful to keep the athlete strong. The nausea of corruption prompts the desire
for what is pure. Darkness spurs people to seek the light…

"The era of the spirit will return after this time of
materiality. The era of the Light will return after the current concealment. The
era of Life will succeed the almost mortal agony. The era of God will arise to
be a force in the final struggle. The era of God will reign over that of Satan.

"On your feet, O Christians, in the fullness of your
charity for God, for your neighbour, for yourselves. God has sent you His Son
and your Brother, through the Mother, so that He would be your Master and
Redeemer, and you would be Children of God. And since you are children, God has
infused the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, and through you He cries out,
‘Abba! Father!

"Man, even the most perfect man, would never be able to
pray with that loving violence which obtains miracles, all miracles. And
so it is, then, that the Spirit of God prays in you, through you, to obtain what
is useful and necessary for you, and what – as holy – is suitable for
sanctifying you…

"What, then, are you afraid of?… Courage then, and do
not be afraid of the things that pass…"

(AZ:
304-5)

(Mary says:)

« Have faith. Be at peace. There is no misery which My
Son cannot turn into riches, there is no solitude which He cannot replenish, and
there is no fault which He cannot cancel. The past no longer exists, once love
has cancelled it. Not even a dreadful past. Are you going to be afraid, when
Disma, the robber, was not? Love, and be afraid of nothing. »

…If it is true that before the end of time more and more
false prophets, servants of the Antichrist, will arise, it is equally true that
Christ the Lord will set more and more of His servants against them, raising up
new apostles in places where they are least expected.

And Infinite Mercy - taking pity on distressed men
overwhelmed by the storm of blood, fire, persecution and death - will have Mary,
the pure Star of the Sea, shine upon the sea of blood and horror. She will be
the forerunner of Christ in his final coming. These new evangelisers will bear
the Gospel of Mary, Who was truly left in the shadow by all the Evangelists,
Apostles and Disciples, whereas vaster knowledge of Her would have instructed
many, preventing many falls. For She is the Co-Redemptrix and Teacher. The
Teacher of pure, humble, faithful, prudent and devout life, in Her home
and among the people of Her time. She is always a Teacher, down through the
centuries, worthy to be all the better known, the more the world sinks towards
the mire and darkness…

[There will be] an awakening assisted by these new evangelizers, bearing not
only the Christ, but the Mother of God. They will uplift the standard of Mary.
They will lead people to Mary… For She is the holy Adversary of the wicked
Enemy, and Her heel is destined to crush the infernal dragon perpetually
(Gen. 3:15),
as Wisdom - which has found its seat in Her - is destined to defeat the heresies
corrupting souls and intellects…

(N45-50:
565-6)

(The Holy Spirit says:)

"...In His second and final coming, the Lamb of God, the
Redeemer, the Saint of saints, will have as
a precursor not the repentant of the
wilderness... but Our Angel - She
who, though having flesh, was the
Seraph...

"Look
over there, to the east of the times... Already upon
the darkness which covers the Earth more thickly and
cursedly, there is an outline of a dawn, none sweeter than Mary.
It is the time of Mary that rises. She is the utmost mercy
that Our
Love has thought for you all.

"Great
will be the length of Her walk. Opposed by Her
eternal enemy, who on account of having been defeated,
[Satan] is no less obstinate in grieving Her and fighting
against Her.
He dulls the intellects of men so as to not let
them know Mary. He extinguishes faiths of men
in Her. He creates fogs. He throws mud. However, the Star of the
Sea is too far above the polluted waves. She
will pass by, and neither will the mud dirty the hem of Her dress. She
will only descend, as swiftly as an
archangel, to put Her seal upon the foreheads of the faithful - next to the mark
of the Tau
(See Ezek. 9:4-6;
Rev. 7:2-3)
- of those saved for the eternal Kingdom. And
strength and peace will enter into their spirits under the
touch of Her hand, Mother of Life and
Fountain of Sal­vation.

"Bless
the Lord who has granted to the purest Star the
beginning of Her walk, in order to attract you to God with the sweetness of Her
love. Merciful Co-Saviour, extreme,
She
compensates - for the good spirits - for the ever deep­er
distancing of God, disgusted by the sins of men..."

« ...From
chaos, God created the Universe, by or­dering
the chaotic materials and elements
into the perfect one of worlds, seasons,
creatures and elements which has
lasted for millions of centuries. However, by observing Cre­ation, few
know how to meditate how creation is similar to
an ascending scale, to a song which rises
always more, note by note, until it touches the perfect and sublime note.
How it is similar to a generating of lives
that - from the preceding one - emerge always more complete and perfect
until reach­ing perfect completeness.

Look: first from the solid
molecules, from the disordered
vapours and fires which were the primitive nebula, the
Earth and the waters are formed. And in the Earth and in the waters still mixed
with the future seas, lakes, springs and
rivers, the minerals become sealed or diluted, whereas
the solid molecules become the crust and
furnace to the internal fires, to
the internal sulphurs and metals and the
bottom of the waters. The atmosphere purifies
itself for some time...
and the Earth,
launched into its trajectory - still naked,
sterile and mute - passes through the silent [regions of] space with the
bald ridges of its mountains just emerging from the dark waters
of the future basins.

Then there was light. Not solar, nor
lunar, nor stellar
light. The sun, moon and stars are creatures younger than
the terrestrial globe...
However, light existed before them. A particular light,
independent from every other source that was
not of the will of God. A mysterious light which only the angels saw
work its mysterious operations in favour of
the terrestrial globe. Because none
of the things created by God is useless,
nor has anything been created without a
reason of perfect order. Thus, if
before, there was light and not the stars and
the planets, it is a sign that the
Perfection wanted this cre­ative
order for a useful and sensible reason. Then came the
sun, the moon, and the stars.

And the element "air", deprived of toxic gasses and rich
of those useful for life, favoured the persistence of new
creatures:
plants. Those are still creatures
enslaved in their roots but that already
have motion in their foliage;
those which, once created, already have within them ele­ments
in order to reproduce themselves, something which
is not conceded to the dust of the Earth, to
the minerals and waters. These three
things can mutate their aspect and
nature: from submerged wood becoming
coal, from fires to sulphurs, from
coals to gems, and by transforming waters into vapours and from these into
waters - or they can burn out.
However, they cannot reproduce themselves.

The plant world can. In it, there is already the sap, the reproductive organs
able to fecundate and be fecundated.
Missing in them, however, is the free will, even instinc­tive.
They obey seasonal, climatic laws and the will of the elements and of man. A
palm cannot live and bear fruit in
cold lands, nor can the polar lichen decorate the rocks of
torrid zones. A plant cannot bloom outside
of the flowering season, nor escape
from a cyclone, fire, or from an axe. And yet,
plant life is already a prodigy of ascension from the
chaos to the perfection of Creation.

[This is] an ascent which increases with
animal life, free in its movements, in
its instincts, and in the will of its creatures. There is also an order
in it. However, the animal already enjoys the freedom of choosing for itself a
lair and a mate, of escaping from the
snares of man and from the elements. Rather, it has an instinct, moreover, a
magnetism of its own, which warns it
of an approaching cataclysm and guides
it to look for safety, just as it has a
rudimentary ability of thinking and
deciding on how to feed itself, defend itself, offend, and on how to make
man its friend and be a friend to man.

In the animal, beyond that of the creative perfection
of the vital lymph (the blood) and reproductive organs as
they are in plants, there are also the
creative perfections of dust, stones and minerals. Do scientists perhaps not
teach you that the skeleton, bone
marrow, blood and organs are
composed of - and contain - those substances called minerals,
of which the Earth that man inhabits and
animals populate is composed after
all?

Therefore, that which is in the lower kingdoms:
miner­als
and plants, is already represented and perfected in ani­mals.
And the scale ascends. The note becomes higher and
purer, more complete, by magnifying God more.

And here is man; man to whom to the
three preceding kingdoms - the first deprived of lymph, the second, of mo­tion,
the third, of reason - the fourth kingdom is added. [This is the kingdom of] the
sensible creature, endowed with the word, intel­ligence
and reason. Reason which regulates instincts. An
intelligence which opens the thought to comprehensions
and visions that are more - sometimes infinitely more - superior to
those which give animals the capacity of thinking of a ma­terial good. The word
which makes him capable of express­ing
his needs and affections, of understanding those of his
fellow creature, and above all, of praising God his Creator,
and praying or evangelizing Him to whoever
ignores Him.

In man, there is the mineral kingdom, the plant one, the
animal one, the human one, and - perfection in perfection -
the spiritual one.

Here is the scale which rises to the supernatural order
from the disorder of the chaos, by passing
through the nat­ural order. Here is
how the natural creature - in which all the
elements and characteristics of that which
form other cre­ations are represented
and combined in synthesis - are com­bined
and perfected. [Here is] the creature - meditate well - made
with mud,
that is to say, with the dust in which the
min­eral salts are fragmented, and with the element of water,
endowed with heat (the element of fire),
with breath (the element of
air), with a natural and intellectual
vision (the element of light), with blood and humour [aqueous],
with glands and reproductive organs
(lymph), with instincts and with
thought, with motion, freedom and will. [In this creature] God infuses
His breath
(Gen.
2:7),
that is "the breath of Life".

[Here is] the soul: the immortal
part like everything which is given directly from the Eternal One;
the spirit that does
not die;
the spirit free from all the laws of time, diseases,
meteorological cataclysms and free from human snares;
the
spirit created in order to re-unite itself with its Fount, by
possessing it and enjoying it eternally;
the spirit which only
man, of his own will, can make into the slave of a cruel
king, but that through its nature and for divine will, does
not have any slavery but only a sweet progeny, the sublime
destiny of inheritance to the Lord and His Kingdom.

Those who deny the soul and its immortality (immortal­ity
because it is a creation, infusion, and part of the eternal
God) and who say that man has the
intellect, genius, free­dom, will and capacity of snatching its powers and
secrets from Creation only because he is "man"
- that is, the crea­ture who has evolved to a perfect degree, and not because of
the soul - are similar to those who are stubborn and who
claim that a perfect work of an artist (sculptor or painter) has life and vision
only because it has been modelled or
painted with a perfect reality.

Even an animal has life and vision. It also has rudimen­tary reason. In the
animal that has been domesticated for
centuries by man, this rudimentary reason has developed
even more, having reached more reason than
instinct in or­der to behave in its
relationships with man, a thing which is missing in wild and savage animals in
which only the instinct predominates.
However, no animal - no matter how
domesticated, loved or instructed it may be - can have that
power of intellect and multiform
capabilities which man has.

The soul is what distinguishes man from animals and makes him a god above all
other created beings, the god - king who
dominates, subjugates, understands, instructs,
provides, and makes him a god by way of its
origin and future destinies.

The
soul, illuminated by its divine origin, is that which
knows, wills, and can [do things], with its already semi-di­vine
strength. A strength which God powerfully supports and assists, the more a soul
elevates itself in justice and
man divinizes himself with a life of justice.

It is the soul that gives to man the right to say to God:
"my Father".

It is the soul that makes of man a living temple of the Spirit of God.

It is the soul that makes of the creation of man the most
perfect work of Creation.

And thus one could say, "And so it is with man - and the
just man - that one has reached the last step of the ascen­sional scale, the
highest note of this divine song, the per­fection
of creative perfection." No. All of this is creation of
a sensible creation. It is procession by procession. It is the
union of the natural creation with a
supernatural creation. However, it is still not Perfection.

Perfection is Jesus. Perfection is
the Christ, the Man-God.
Perfection is the Son of God and of Man. He who for
Divinity did not have but the Father, He who for Human­ity
did not have but the Mother. He who in the garment
of flesh enclosed the two Natures. Joined together in Him are these two natures,
which an infinite distance - that is,
between the perfection of even the holiest man and that of
God - always keeps apart.

Only in Jesus are the divine and human nature, joined
and not confused, yet making up one sole
Christ. In Him, the Son of Man:
all of the sensible creation is represented
just as in every man; the
supersensible creation is repre­sented;
and the spiritual nature; and
lastly represented is the Uncreated, the Eternal:
God, He Who without ever having been
generated, is
(Ex. 3:14);
He Who without any other work than
His love, generates.

The Christ: He who divinizes matter,
who glorifies it,
and who restores to Adam his dignity. The Christ:
the ring that rejoins that which has been
broken, the Lamb who re­virginizes
man in innocence which is Grace. Through His
divine nature, He can do everything;
through His human-divine love, He can do everything;
through His will, He can do everything, because He gives everything.

Whoever knows how to contemplate Christ, possesses
Wisdom. Because Christ is not only divine Perfection, but He
is also human Perfection. Whoever contemplates Him with
wisdom sees the admirable person of the Son of Man in
whom is the fullness of sanctity.

However, the wisdom which comes from this contem­plation,
and the imitation which naturally arises in one
who truly knows how to contemplate, makes the soul so
illuminated that she [the soul] - enraptured by love and
knowledge - exclaims, "Here is the living God, the Emmanuel.
Here is the living mystery of the infinite Love of
God!" And it is the comprehension of Who Christ is:
the
compendium of triple Love, the testimony of the love of
God towards man.

And so this is how the ineffable mystery of the virginal
Conception illuminates itself of the incandescent flashes
of Love. And the soul of the contemplative - overflowing
with this Light which is Fire, of this Fire which is Wisdom,
of this Wisdom which is Light - not only believes because
of faith, but believes because he sees. And this is how the
word of the seraphic John of Bethsaida is
explained, "the one who loves is born of God and knows God... Whoever
believes in Jesus Christ is born of God."
Truly, only one who loves with his whole self can know God and the
inef­fable mystery which is the Incarnation of the Word...

The new Adam was not conceived by man, but by the Spirit of the Eternal Lord,
placed in Mary. [He is] the living
paradise where the Trinity gets its compliances, where the love of
God took flesh, and where the Word loved by the Father incarnated
Himself in order to be offered as a victim
for the salvation of the world.

And
the purest royal Priestess was the ardent Virgin of
the purest and strongest love that no
creature born to man had ever had.
She accepted it and offered Herself for all
men, and the "Behold the servant of the
Lord, be it done to Me according to
Your word" was the "Let there be Light"
(Gen. 1:3)
of the truest creation, of the "recreation" of man to Son of
God and Heir to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Therefore, it is because of Christ that men have Life.
Be­cause
of the Son of God - Son by divine Nature and human
perfection - men have Grace. Because of Jesus and in His
imitation, men, sustained by Grace, will have the glory of
the sons of God. And finally, because of the Second Person, and
for His
perfect obedience to the First, men have the Holy Spirit, that is, the Master,
Strength, Love and Wisdom.»

«...The
intellect, the conscience, and the Law are amongst
the many gifts that man has received from
God, that have been left even after the Sin, or that have been
re-instated after the Redemption.

The intellect is capable of distinguishing that which is
good, and that which is evil. Even more, it helps man in distinguishing the
divine Law, which indicates that which
is good, and that which is evil, and which teaches how and why
one can and must want to do good, and not
want to do evil.

The voice of the conscience - and it could also be called
the "voice of the Lord Himself speaking
within man" - is another help, not only in spurring the will to do good
deeds or in keeping the same will from doing
evil deeds, but it is the source to repentance, and it spurs to the reparation
of an evil committed, so that man can
return to the grace of God that he
had lost while sinning.

God has given this to man. And so that His actions could be of merit, He gave
free will. Man can do anything that he
wills. Good as well as evil. In his will - to do one or the other -
is the proof which will either reconfirm him in Grace, or
will cast him out of the true Life... »

"Here
is the promise. And here is the reply to whoever
believes that only a Catholic can save himself...

"God
has every power. God has every mercy. And His
joy is to
communicate Himself to the spirits who yearn for the unknown God
(See Acts 17:23-31)
- whom they feel exists without knowing how,
who, where He is, nor how to go to Him...

"Many. Many.
Yes. Because God justifies the uncircum­cised by means of faith, and the
circumcised by means of
faith. And truly, many times the
uncircumcised - out of the mysterious
faith that inspires them (a divine gift to these with good will), without
knowing the works prescribed by the
Law - work better than those who know them, by show­ing thus that faith is even
more valuable than the Law in
saving man. Because where there is faith in an
unknown God, Who loves and rewards for
the good done in His hon­our, there is hope
and there is love. And where there is love, there is salvation. Because
truly, at the end of time, those who were
not baptized with water will be baptized
with Fire, that is, with the Love given as a
reward for their love."

(ROMANS: 80)

(The Holy Spirit speaks of the horror of Hell, and of justice for all –
Catholics, Separated Christians, and Non-Christians:)

"...The
tribulation and anguish of life are but a
minimal taste of the tribulation and anguish beyond life.
For hell and damnation are horrors that even the exact de­scription
of them, given by God himself, are always inferior to that which they are. You
cannot, not even through a di­vine description, conceive exactly what damnation
is, what
hell is.
Just as a vision and divine lesson - of that which is God - still cannot convey
to you the infinite joy of the true
knowledge of the eternal day of the just ones in Paradise...
To you living ones, con­fines are
placed on the knowledge of paradisiacal ecstasy
and infernal anguish. Because if you were to
know all that these are, you would either die out of love or horror.

"Either
punishment or reward will be given with just
measure to
the Jew, as to the Greek, that is:
to the believer in the true God;
to a Christian outside of the trunk
of the eternal Life; to the heretic;
to the one who follows other revealed
religions or his own one; or to
a creature to whom every religion is
unknown...

"Every
man is endowed with a
soul and with reason, and because of these, he has within
himself what is sufficient to be a guide and a law to him.
And God, in His justice, will reward or punish according to
what the spirit knew,
more severely therefore, the more the
spirit and reason are of a civil being and in contact with
priests or Christian ministers - or of revealed religions - and
according to the faith of the spirit. Because if one, even if
from a schismatic or perhaps a separated church, firmly
believes in being in the right faith, his
faith justifies him. And if he does
good in order to follow God, the supreme
Good, he will have, one day, the reward of
his faith and up­right works - with greater divine benevolence than that
granted to Catholics. Because God will
calculate how much more of an effort
the ones who were separated from the mystical
Body had to use - the Muslims, the
Brahminists, Buddhists and Pagans - in
order to be just...

"There is no acceptance of persons before God. He will
judge for the deeds done, not for the human
origins of men. And many will be
those who, believing themselves to be elect because they are Catholics,
will see themselves pre­ceded by many others
who served the true God, to them unknown, by having followed justice..."

(ROMANS:
60-1)

"...All
those who are moved by love become 'children
of God',
since their every action inspires love, that is, to the
good towards Him Whose presence they feel - even if they do
not exactly know Him - and towards their fellow creatures. Therefore,
they live according to the natural-moral law,
placed and preserved by God the Creator in the heart of
man.

"It
is of these people that St. Paul writes,
'When
the
Gentiles - who have not the law - do that which the law im­poses,
and by not having a law, are a law unto themselves
and they show that the fear of the law is
written in their hearts and bears
witness to their conscience... they will be
justified on the day in which God, through
Jesus Christ, will judge the secret actions of men
(Rom.
2:14-16).'

"As
a matter of fact, whoever acts with a good conscience -
by following the dictates of the moral law -
shows that he has a
Christian
soul by nature, open to Good and to the
Truth. And Jesus, who died so that
men of good will could have eternal
Life, will be their justification. Be­cause all those - though not
knowing of God as He is known by Catholics - firmly believe that God is a just
and provident God, and that He remunerates
each and every­one according to
individual merits. They belong to the soul of the Church:
out of the love which they feel for Him;
out of the love and justice which they have for their neighbour
and for themselves;
out of the desire of God; and out of
the perfect contrition of the sins which could have been com­mitted.

"As having
previously stated - that sorrow is the eighth
sacrament and
the ninth beatitude - so I say that love, truly
lived and practiced, and the sincere repentance of sins
which could have been unintentionally committed, are the
baptism of desire, worthy of implicit participation in the
Mystical Body, and therefore, participation in Grace.
Only God, and the men in whom God operates,
are familiar with the divine actions that lead human beings to the
salvation and celestial knowledge of the
Truth, for which they have been created.

"Love
is the holy activity which moves all the forces of
man, by directing them to their ultimate end. Love is Wis­dom.
And Wisdom is freedom from things which are tran­sitory
and limited. It is freedom from that which confines and keeps you
attached to the Earth, and it opens infinities of
space for the spirit, so that it can fly
and hurl itself towards the eternal Truth Who lowers Himself to he who
loves Him..."

(In
a series of teachings on how to die, Jesus lists some objectives for us to work
towards…)

"…To give up affections and yield oneself to God with no
resistance. Not to envy those possessing what we are leaving. In this expression
you can trust to God all that you care about and that you are abandoning, and
all that occasions you anguish, including your own spirit…

"Say
'these
are my worldly affairs, the affairs which on certain occasions prompted me to be
unjust, envious of my neighbour, and to forget You because they seemed to me to
be of capital importance… I was presumptuous. Sometimes I even said that You did
not love me because what I wanted did not turn out well, as with others whom I
envied. Now I see. Have mercy on me!...'

"And love cries out,
'I
am thirsty for You and for souls. To save. To love. To die in order to be free
to love and save. To die in order to be born. To leave behind in order to
possess. To refuse all sweetness, all comfort. For everything is vanity here
below, and the soul only wants to plunge into the river, into the Ocean of
Divinity, to drink from It, to be in It, with no more thirst. For the Fount of
the Water of Life will have received it'.

"To feel this thirst, in order to make reparation for
lovelessness and lust."

(N45-50: 281-2, 285)

"…I walked today, tomorrow, and the day after, for
years… and set one step after another, with the Cross on My back, higher and
higher and higher… Look at all the footprints… Look at all the Blood…

"Walk on, today, tomorrow, and also the day after… And the final hours will be
the most painful ones… But afterwards… afterwards your spirit will come to rest
in the hands of your Jesus."

(N45-50: 21)

(Jesus says that this is the time to forgive...)

"It is time to divest oneself of all that is a weight, to fly more securely to
God. You cannot take with you either affections or riches which are not
spiritual and good. And there is no man who dies without having to forgive one
or many of his fellows for something – and in many areas, for many reasons. What
man reaches the point of dying, without having suffered the harshness of
betrayal, estrangement, deceit, usury, or any other form of harm - from
relatives, consorts, or friends? Well then, it is time to forgive, in order to
be forgiven. To forgive completely, leaving aside not only the rancor, the
memory, but even the conviction
that our reason for indignation was proper. It is the hour of death. Time, the
world, business affairs, and affections come to an end and become 'nothingness.'
Now only one truth exists: God. What
good is it, then, to carry over
the threshold what belongs to this side of the threshold?

"To forgive. And since reaching the
perfection of love and forgiveness ‑ which is not even to say, 'And yet I
was right' any more ‑ is very difficult,
too difficult for man. The task of forgiving on our behalf thus passes on to
the Father. To give Him our forgiveness, Him, Who is
not a man, Who is perfect, Who
is good, Who is the Father. So that He will purify it in His Fire and give it,
once it has been rendered perfect, to those deserving forgiveness.

"To forgive the living and the dead. Yes, the dead, too, who have been the cause
of pain. Their death has removed many sharp edges from the indignation of the
offended ‑ it has sometimes removed all of them, but the memory still remains.
They have caused suffering, and one remembers that they have caused suffering.
This memory always sets a limit upon our forgiveness. No, not any more now. Now
death is about to remove every limit from the spirit. One is entering the
infinite. To remove, then, this memory, too, which limits forgiveness. To
forgive, to forgive, so that the soul will have no weight and torment from
memories, and will be at peace with all the brothers and sisters who are alive
or are being purified, before encountering the Peaceful One.

"'Father, forgive them'
(Lk.
23:34)...
An act of love. To die in an act of love is to receive the indulgence of love.
Blessed are those who are able to forgive, in expiation, for all their hardness
of heart and for their sins of wrath..."

(Nearing the end of her
1945-50 Notebooks, Maria Valtorta offers a personal view of the call to
evangelize. She says:)

Since for twenty centuries there has been everything necessary for man to
possess the Eternal Kingdom and reach the end for which he was created, there
will not be a second redemption by
the God‑Man. The man who loses Grace through weakness, has
the means to recover it, and be
redeemed. As he falls on his own, so on his own he can be redeemed by using the
perpetual gifts which Christ instituted for all men who wish to draw from them.

And the Word of the Father will
not come for a second
Evangelization. He will not come
personally. And yet He will evangelize. He will raise up new evangelizers
who will evangelize in His Name. They will evangelize in a new way, in keeping
with the times. This new way will not substantially change the eternal Gospel or
the great Revelation, but will broaden, complete, and make them understandable
and acceptable - even to those [with their] atheism and their incredulity...

New evangelizers... will be more and more numerous, and the world... when terror
takes hold of the foolish... will turn to them so that they will be strength,
hope, and light - in the darkness, horror, and tempest of ongoing persecution by
the antichrists. For, if it is true that before the end of time more and more
false prophets, servants of the Antichrist, will arise, it is equally true that
Christ the Lord will set more and more of His servants against them, raising up
new apostles in places where they are least expected.

And Infinite Mercy - taking pity on distressed men overwhelmed by the storm of
blood, fire, persecution, and death - will have Mary, the pure Star of the Sea,
shine upon the sea of blood and horror. And She will be the forerunner of Christ
in His final coming. These new evangelizers will bear the Gospel of Mary, who
was truly left in the shadow by all the Evangelists, Apostles, and Disciples,
whereas vaster knowledge of Her would have instructed many, preventing many
falls. For She is the Co‑Redemptrix
and Teacher. The Teacher of pure, humble, faithful, prudent, and devout
life - in Her home and among the people of Her time. She is always a Teacher,
down through the centuries. She is worthy to be all the better known - the more
the world sinks towards the mire and darkness - so as to be all the more
imitated, in order to lead the world back to what is not darkness and mire.

The times ahead will be times of war ‑ not only materially but, above all,
between materiality and spirit. The Antichrist will seek to drag rational
creatures into the swamp of a beastly life... prompting a powerful awakening of
the spirit... assisted by these new evangelizers, bearing not only Christ, but
the Mother of God. They will uplift the standard of Mary. They will lead people
to Mary. And Mary, Who was already, once before, the cause and source ‑
indirect, but still powerful ‑ of man's redemption, will continue to be such.
For She is the holy Adversary of the wicked Enemy, and Her heel is destined to
crush the infernal dragon
(Gen.
3:15)
perpetually, as Wisdom - which has found its seat in Her - is destined to defeat
the heresies corrupting souls and intellects.

At that time - which must inevitably come - the darkness will fight with the
light, bestiality with the spirit, the Satanic with the surviving children of
God, and Babylon with the Heavenly Jerusalem. And the lusts of Babylon - the
threefold lusts - will overflow like stinking, uncontainable waters, seeping in
everywhere, even into the House of God, as already occurred and is to happen
again... In that time of open separation between the children of God and Satan,
the children of God will reach a spiritual power never before attained, and
those of Satan, [will attain] an evil power so vast that no mind can imagine
what it will really be like. Then the new evangelization will come, the full new
evangelization which - for the time being - is going through its initial
awakening, exposed to opposition. And it will work great miracles of conversion
and perfection.

There
will be great efforts by Satanic hatred for Christ and the Woman, but the Two
will be unreachable for Their enemies... In the right way and at the right time,
the final evangelization will be carried out, and those who yearn for Light and
Life will have them ‑ full, perfect, and provided through a means known only by
the two Givers, by Jesus and Mary. Only those who choose darkness and mire,
heresy and hatred for God and Mary... will have torment and eternal hatred, as
is proper for it to be, when He who is to come does come...

"...I,
Love and Wisdom, say to you, less science and more love, and you will possess
Wisdom.

"Wanting to
explain the mystery of God and the marvel­lous
processes of Creation, of evolution, and of the trans­formation
of created things with human science, is a fool­ishness
which degenerates later into heresy. One cannot ex­plain
the origin of the finite, other than by contemplating it
with love, that is, with faith...

"Faith illuminates
science and helps it to understand. It is like
maternal milk that turns the infant into an always more formed human being. But
[just as] a new-born could nev­er sustain
and nourish the mother and not even an adult, so too, science cannot nourish and
help faith. Because faith is religion;
and religion permits the creature - intelligent but
limited - to understand the superintelligible
and the infi­nite.

"And if science is
sufficient in order to understand finite
knowledge, [then] wisdom - that is, faith and love - is indispens­able
in order to know sublime truths. In believing, there is
light. In analyzing - in order to
understand, dispute and ac­cept the mystery, because it is investigated in the
same way a doctor or lawyer would
investigate a physical illness or a
moral lesion - is
to create darkness and coldness.

"Faith
is not contrary to science. Rather, human science finds in religion the help in
explaining itself and achieving discoveries and the laws of Creation. But
whereas human
science - without the help of religion - is destined to inevitably
fall into
error, religion, even without the help of science,
guides to the Truth and knowledge of
essential truths.

"And when afterwards
the natural laws and the natural facts are not the only things investigated with
human sci­ence but they wish to explain and
investigate the super­natural mysteries -
God, who is always a mystery to man
- then more than
to error, this is met with denial.

"Reason, this
great thing that distinguishes man from
brutes, is great
if it is compared to instinct, the sole light of
the lower beings. However it is a small,
small, small thing if it is put to the test in the investigation of what God is.
And reason, if it is humble, falls
down in respect before the
incomprehensible, infinite God, crying,
'I
believe! In order
to understand You, I believe, and the faith in your Revela­tion
is my light, it is my food in order to
"live":
to live of
You, in You, with You, in order to know You as the just will
know You, living in Your celestial Kingdom.'

"Neither idealism nor positivism explain God, Creation,
and the second life. Nor are they useful in
reading the an­swers to scientific questions written in human bodies, on
the pages of the firmaments and in the
terrestrial atmo­spheres. They do
not explain: God, Creation, the
second life; nor pride of the mind
that on its own wants to understand
what is superior to human reason;
nor ignorance or semi-ignorance that
considers knowing and being able to judge
what, without My light, they cannot judge and
know, so that not even those who are
called doctors in religion will be
able to judge justly.

"However, love
explains everything. Because it is a link to
God and places
God in you, Guest and Master. For this rea­son,
the saying
'true
theologians are those who are guided by the Holy Spirit, that is by Love',
is a just truth."

(ROMANS: 126-7)

(The Holy Spirit speaks of the kingliness of the created man...)

"When
one says,
'man,
king of the sensible creation, was
created with the power of dominion upon all creatures'
(Gen. 1:26-8),
one needs to reflect that he - because of Grace, and for the
other gifts received from the first moment of his being -
was made to be king even of himself and of his instincts,
out of the knowledge of his ultimate purpose, for the love
that made him supernaturally tend towards it, and for the
dominion over matter and the senses existing in it...

"It
is foolish to think that God created
shapeless things, expecting to
be glorified by these when individual creatures and all
creatures would have reached, with successive evolutions,
the perfection of their nature so that they
would be suited for the natural or
supernatural end for which they had been created...
Could one think of
a Paradise whose legions of Saints, exalting around the throne of God, be an end
product of a long evolution of
beasts?

"Present
man is not the result of an ascending evolution,
but the sorrowful result of a descending evolution, as the sin of Adam has
marred the physical-moral-spiri­tual
perfection of the original man
forever.
He so marred it, that not
even the Passion of Jesus Christ - though restoring the life
of Grace to all those baptized - can annul the residues of the
sin...

"In
order to live, the cell needs a vital ground with ele­ments
that allow for and maintain life. If the cell formed itself from nothing,
where did it find the elements in order to
form, live and reproduce itself?... And when, supposing that this
non-existent [cell] had been able to form
itself from nothing, how, from its
unique unity and species could there have come from it so
many diverse species, as many as there
are to be found in the sensible
Creation?...

"Thus,
the one Man was created, the one from whom all
of humanity would come, and the Woman in the first place,
the companion of the Man...
who as a father would have transmitted to his descen­dants
everything that he had received:
life, senses, material
goods as well as immunity to every suffering, reason, intel­lect,
knowledge, integrity, immortality, and finally, the gift
of gifts, Grace...

"By
wanting to create a population of children - in order
to spread the love of which He superabounds, and to receive
the love of which He is thirsty - God created man directly,
with His perfect will...
He made a living and perfect
flesh from dust... And [He made] not only the
soul - which even animals have in
their nostrils and which ceases with
the death of the animal - but the spiritual soul:
which is immortal, which
survives beyond the death of the body,
and which will re-animate the body beyond
death...

"Follow
me. My word is luminous and simple because I am God. And God, Infinite Wisdom,
knows how to adapt Himself to the
ignorance and relativity of His
little ones. Because I love the little ones - provided they are humble -
and I say to them, "Whoever is a little one, come to
Me, and I
will teach you Wisdom. "

(Late in His Public Life, Jesus visits the synagogue of the Roman Freedmen in
Jerusalem, and is asked by the synagogue leader:)

« You said
that some will become glorious at once in Heaven. Is Heaven not closed? Are the
just not in Limbo awaiting to enter it? »

« It is so.
Heaven is closed. And it will be opened only by the Redeemer. But His hour has
come. I solemnly tell you that the day of Redemption is already dawning in the
east and it will soon be broad daylight. I solemnly tell you that no other feast
will come, after this one, before that day. I solemnly tell you that I am
already forcing the gates, as I am already on the top of the mountain of My
sacrifice… My sacrifice is already pressing against the gates of Heaven because
it is already active. Remember, man, that when it is accomplished, the sacred
curtains and the celestial gates will be opened. Because Jehovah will no longer
be present with His glory in the Holy of Holies, and it will be useless to put a
veil between the Incognoscible One and mortals. And Mankind, who preceded us and
was just, will go back to where it was destined, with the First-Born heading it,
already a complete whole in body and spirit, and His brothers wearing the
garment of light that they will have until also their bodies are called to the
jubilation. »...

(Vol. 4: 770)

(And what about now – is there still a Limbo? Jesus speaks to His apostles about
the basic equality of all souls…)

« After the end of the world no other virtue will survive except Charity, that
is, the Union of all the creatures who lived in justice, with the Creator. There
will not be several Heavens: one for Israel, one for Christians, one for
Catholics, one for Gentiles, one for heathens. There will be one Heaven only.
And likewise there will be one reward only: God, the Creator, Who rejoins His
creatures who lived according to justice, and in whom, because of the beauty of
the souls and bodies of saints, He will admire Himself with the joy of Father
and of God. There will be one Lord only. Not one Lord for Israel, one for
Catholicism, one for each of the other religions.

I will now reveal a great truth to you. Remember it. Hand it down to your
successors. Do not always wait for the Holy Spirit to clarify the truth after
years or centuries of darkness. Listen. You may say: "Then, what justice is
there in belonging to the holy religion, if at the end of the world we shall be
treated exactly as the Gentiles?". I reply to you: the same justice which there
is and it is true justice - for those who, although they belong to the holy
religion, will not be beatified, because they did not lead a holy life. A
virtuous heathen, only because he lived according to choice virtue, convinced
that his religion was good, will have Heaven at the end. When? At the end of the
world, when of the four abodes of the dead, two only will remain: that is,
Paradise and Hell. Because Justice, at that time, will only be able to keep and
give the two eternal kingdoms to those, who from the tree of free will, chose
good fruits or wanted wicked ones.

But what a long expectation before a virtuous heathen achieves that reward!… Do
You not think so? And that expectation, particularly from the moment when
Redemption will have taken place with all its consequent wonders and the Gospel
will have been preached all over the world, will be the purgation of the souls
which lived with justice in other religions, but were not able to enter the true
Faith, after they became acquainted with its existence and the proof of its
reality. Their abode will be Limbo for centuries and centuries, until the end of
the world.

The believers in the true God, who were not heroically holy, will have a long
Purgatory, which may last until the end of the world for some of them. But after
expiating and waiting, the good, irrespective of their provenance, will all sit
at the right hand of God; the wicked, whichever their provenance may be, at the
left hand and then in the dreadful Hell, while the Saviour will enter the
eternal Kingdom with all the good souls. »

(Vol. 4: 167-8)

(But what of the souls of the unbaptized just, who may have to wait for
centuries in Limbo, before entering Heaven? Jesus says:)

"...A great number of the just had been waiting for centuries and millennia for
the Redemption, in purifying them from sin, to allow them to come to form part
of the Kingdom of God, where only those who have supernatural Life in themselves
can enter. An even greater number of men who have come after Christ are waiting
to enter, when their purification from serious voluntary sins is completed, or
when Most Perfect Justice opens the Heavens to all who lived and acted with
charity and justice - according to the law of conscience - to serve and honor
thereby the Being Whom they felt existed, thus forming part of the soul of the
Church.

It is unthinkable that God, Perfect Charity Who has created all souls,
predestining them to Grace, should exclude from His Kingdom those who, through
no fault of their own, have not received Baptism. What sin have they committed?
Did they spontaneously wish to be born in places which were not Catholic? Are
the new-born who die at birth responsible for not being baptized? Can God act
cruelly towards all of these who are not the "church" in the strict sense of the
word, but are such in having received their souls from God and having died as
innocents - because they died at birth, or lived as just people through their
natural tendency to do good in order, in that way, to honor the Supreme Good, to
whose existence everything in and around them bore witness? No, and a convincing
indication that such is not the case is the inexorable, very severe judgment of
God regarding those who suppress a life, even an embryonic one, or one just
born, keeping it from receiving the Sacrament which removes original sin. Why
this severity, if not because for centuries and millennia those souls of
innocents are separated from God, in a state which is not a punishment, but not
joyful, either? Can it be thought that the Most Good, who has pre destined all
men to Grace, would deprive of it those who - by no spontaneous choice - are not
Catholics?

"’My Father has many mansions in Heaven,’ Christ said
(Jn.
14:2).
When this world is no
more, but there is a new world - a new heaven, and the new tabernacles of the
Eternal Jerusalem - and all the rational creation receives its glorification
with the exaltation of the Risen Ones, who were the just, to possess the Eternal
Kingdom of God, those were united only to the soul of the Church will also have
their dwelling in Heaven. For only Heaven and Hell will remain eternally, and it
cannot be thought that Charity would damn to eternal torment creatures
undeserving of it..."

(N45-50: 561-2)

(The Holy Spirit speaks of the emptying of Limbo at the Last Judgement...)

« ...It
will be an im­mense
crowd... of every nation, tribe, people, language,
onto whom, on the last day - through the infinite merits of
Christ immolated as far as to the extreme drop of blood
and body fluid
- there will be impressed the seal of the living God for the salvation and
reward, before the ex­treme and final judgement.

Their virtues, their spontaneous obedience to the law of
virtues, will have baptized them without any other bap­tism,
consecrated without any other chrism than that of
the infinite merits of the Saviour. Limbo will no longer
be the abode of the just ones. Just as on the night of Good
Friday, Limbo had emptied itself of its just ones
(Mt. 27:51-3)
because
the Blood spilled by the Redeemer had cleansed them from
original sin. So too, on Judgement Day, the merits of Christ -
triumphing over every enemy - will absolve them of not hav­ing
been of His flock for their firm faith of being in the
right
religion, and will reward them for their virtue exer­cised
in life.

If it were not so, God would be cheating these just ones
who gave themselves a law of justice and who defended
justice and virtue. And God never cheats. It sometimes
takes a long time for it to be accomplished, though always
certain is His reward...

[On that day].
Purgatory will no longer exist,
and its inhabitants will pass over to the Kingdom of God.
And also Limbo will no longer exist, because the Redeemer
is the same for all men who
follow justice in order to hon­our
God in Whom they believe, and to tend towards Him,
just as they know Him, with all their strength...
»